David Weaver in Conversation: Intersecting Mental Health, Politics, and Societal Transformation

What is it like to stand at the crossroads of identity, ancestry, and social change? David Weaver joins us to share his insights on the therapy profession's role in societal transformation. With his unique perspective as a social worker, political advisor, and leadership consultant, David unravels the threads of personal history and professional ambition, weaving a narrative that is both intimate and profound.

In dialogue with John Wilson, David covers the complex terrain of systemic racism within the therapy field, dissecting how economic strains, like the ongoing cost of living crisis, exacerbate this problem. David encourages us to look at actionable solutions, stressing the urgency of embedding diversity and social justice into the fabric of psychological services. The conversation calls on therapists and communities to work together in crafting a future where mental health can flourish within a diverse society. At the heart of David’s experiences and perspective is the possibility of hope. He takes us through the power of voting, community dialogues, and the need for political advocacy to amplify the voice of mental health in policy-making circles.

As we chart the intersection of mental well-being and political action, David's expertise shines a light on the importance of hope and engagement in the democratic process. He takes us through the power of voting, community dialogues, and the need for political advocacy to amplify the voice of mental health in policy-making circles. This isn't just an episode; it's a testament to the collective responsibility we share to foster change and a reflection on the legacy we aspire to leave for the generations that follow. Join us as we navigate these pivotal conversations with David Weaver and envision a world where resilience is not just imagined but actively built, one community at a time.

This Podcast is sponsored by Onlinevents 

Transcript

John Wilson: 0:00

Welcome everybody to the podcast, from therapy to social change, and I'm very pleased, and it's a real honour, to welcome David Weaver to the podcast. So, david, thank you for joining us for the next hour or so to, yeah, dig into the conversation and really pleased to have you here. I wanted to just begin by reading a bit of your bio, david, just to give listeners a sense of the breadth and the depth of your work over the years. Is that okay with you, david?

John Wilson: 0:30

Yeah that's absolutely fine, that'd be lovely, thank you. So, david, you're a former social worker, a senior manager within local government, university lecturer and political advisor to two senior government ministers. A lot of your work has centred on leadership, change management and conflict management, and you're also involved in facilitating leadership development programmes, coaching and interventions with senior leaders and key personnel within public service bodies and, as a senior partner of the DWC Consulting Group, doing a lot of work with leadership and change management consultancy. You also are one of a small number of consultants involved in facilitating the leadership programme for leading elected members commissioned by the local government association for England and Wales developed a strong track record and reputation in the areas of coaching, mediation and conflict management, where you've been consistently assisting individuals and organisations to arrive at effective outcomes, often where the contexts are regarded as sticky and highly complex. And you've also served a five-year term as the president of the BACT, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, and your tenure finished just in 2022. So it's not that long ago.

John Wilson: 2:11

So that really is a breadth and a depth of work, and I'm sure as president of BACP, you've been in many sticky and delicate situations. It's probably a great way of describing the whole therapy field, I guess. So thank you for coming along to chat to us, describing the whole therapy field, I guess. So thank you for coming along to chat to us about therapy, social change and even whether those two things can be connected. I think it's easy in the therapy field to think, oh, because we work so hard to understand people and to help affect change, I guess whether we can, at that wider cultural, societal context, whether we can be contributing um to change. But I know in a couple of discussions we've had about the podcast, you've also been saying something about your own personal experiences, yeah, and the different places that you've lived, educational experiences, work experiences. Could you say a little bit about why you're so passionate about social change in terms of your own?

David Weaver: 3:23

experience. David, would that be okay? Sure, um, I suppose it's just defined me from the day I was born, um, and I remember, at the age of 12, my best friend, glenn. He was a white boy. Um, he was about 14 years of age, white boy.

David Weaver: 3:46

He said to me weaver, why is it that everything you, everything you talk about, everything you're experiencing, all your insights, got something to do with the color of your skin? Actually, I was older. I was older than that, you know. So it would be, you know, something happens and I would be late to being black. Or we go into a shop and I'd be thinking they're looking at me because I'm black. Or the first time the two of us came and encountered the police, they picked on me and didn't pick on him, and I think for him it was actually he just navigated, just being a normal boy, and as I grew older, I could see it.

David Weaver: 4:30

Now you just occupy that central point of yeah, what are you doing today? I'm going to pub later after work, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, and I'm talking about going to certain meetings. I'm talking about watching the news and what it means for people, for me or people like me and so forth. So from a very early age, um, and I had a father who was, uh, you know, as a church minister largest church in nottingham as I was growing up and he also worked for local government and we had, you know, councillors, political councillors and MPs and so forth coming through the room, going into church and so forth.

David Weaver: 5:12

And I remember learning about my ancestry and I've just felt that I can't occupy life without trying to do something to address the circumstances that people like me find themselves in based on the colour of their skin, but also just people who are disadvantaged and discriminated against because of their identity, their class, their gender, sexuality, et cetera, et cetera. So there's always that feeling of social justice that I've had and I think that defines me really. It's about trying to do the best that I can to address the ills that I see within society. I wanted to be a footballer for a while and then I got through to Notts County and that wasn't good enough. I got caught smoking by Jimmy Sill. So that gave me clarity that this is what I need to do.

John Wilson: 6:17

Okay, that was the end of that path, I guess. And yes, yeah, thank you for that, david, really appreciate it. You, just before we started recording the podcast, you were um, relating an experience, I guess, when you were younger, at school, about the teacher wanting the class to be thinking about ancestry and, like the yeah could you say something about that?

David Weaver: 6:43

that's right, that's right, so it's. It's something that's always asked of me and a lot of and a lot of black men, black women, which is around where does identity play a part? Um, and from a very early age I just remember um, uh, being given homework, uh, and my friend glenn, again, and others, about your, your, your, your family tree and that's how you get to go back and establish where you came from, your family tree and so forth. And I remember coming going home and trying to do it and um, just couldn't get, just didn't get very far for all the reasons that we've known. I'll explain it in detail, if it helps.

David Weaver: 7:25

Coming back to school and my white friends were able to go way back, way back, way back, and I wasn't, but the key thing there was that there was no understanding, empathy, and if there was understanding, there was no empathy or awareness about why David Weaver couldn't do the homework in the same way as my white counterparts at that very young, early age. And so, from a very early age, you're being told that you're different and you're, you're seeing, so you're, you're, you're having to understand what defines you, what describes you. I was talking earlier about my name, um, and I'm weaver and I'm very proud to be a weaver, but that's not my name. You know you go back in history um plantation owners. In antigua there was a plantation owner called veba and my great great grandfather changed the name from veba to weaver in denouncing slavery. So you know, no matter how hard I tried as a young boy, as a man, to occupy that centre of you know it's normal. Let me just go on and be the same, be able to achieve and so forth, it wasn't the same.

John Wilson: 8:40

Yeah, Well, and that teacher wasn't approaching the class thinking about the different ways that homework would impact everybody in the class. Like there's that assumption that I think you even said the teacher's like well, why haven't you done the homework properly, David? But it still happens now, doesn't it?

David Weaver: 9:01

And it's not probably as blatant as that now, but it still happens now, doesn't it?

David Weaver: 9:03

And it's probably isn't as blatant as that now, but it still happens now.

David Weaver: 9:06

If you look at the syllabus, the syllabus, you know, is not truly multicultural or recognising the ethnicities that there are.

David Weaver: 9:16

You could take away the issue of race and look at issues of class, look at issues of gender and so forth. It is not fully representative of those issues. So when you fast forward or look at some of the issues around training within therapy, look at the understanding that therapists have as a whole, as a whole as a system, in terms of the diversity of our society, the point that I'm making replicates, I would say, the counselling and psychotherapy world. And I felt that writ large, you know, in my involvement, not just as president, but also as a board member and, prior to that, as a vice president of BACP, and certainly the work we do within communities, and so I feel that there is that real conversation to be had the meaningful, outward-focused conversation to be had about what I see as the dissonance between the training that counsellors receive and the overall knowledge base and experience and skills on a systems level because they were outstanding individuals um, um, within that that, that dissonance between that and ordinary people in society.

John Wilson: 10:36

I'm not just talking about race, although race is a key factor because of, obviously, the conversation that we've been having about my, my background yeah, yeah, because, like you're saying, really that's only a couple of hundred years ago, like in history, that's not, you know, in terms of what was happening to your family, in terms of um, name change, being displaced and then being in this kind of culture and yeah, but just no thought about that from the educational system that you were then growing up in.

David Weaver: 11:15

Um, yeah, yes, yes and I would say that, you know, we talked about education, we spoke about, um, some of my experiences as a child within that. This is where the conversation, I think, about institutional racism or institutional discrimination comes in. It's right across the board. And then the question needs to be asked what does that mean then? If we're speaking about therapy, counseling, psychotherapy, psychotherapies, what does that mean then for the role of counselling and psychotherapy in terms of addressing those societal ills? And that's where that social change and social justice piece has been so important to me, and that's that's why I became interested in counselling, psychotherapy actually, because I just felt it is so powerful, it can make a difference. But you know, um, it's not making a difference in the way.

David Weaver: 12:10

I'll say these things, just opening and maybe provocatively, in the way that it could and the way that it should. Um, and that is not to say there's not brilliant thinking that's taking place and brilliant interventions and so forth. Of course there are. But if we're dealing with social change as a system and see that counseling saves lives and can change lives, well, what is it that needs to happen within the profession? So we're talking about social change. What are the individual responsibilities of people that that go into the profession. Um, you know, should there be, know a bit more clearly explained values.

David Weaver: 12:49

And I think we had this conversation many years ago, mick, at a conference. I think we probably had a couple of glasses of wine and so forth. It was a good conversation. But you know, what is it all about? And how do we ensure that these conversations are seen as business, critical, embedded and mainstream to conversations about not just the role of counselling and psychotherapy but the nature of the training and the various disciplines and approaches to therapy and so forth and their relevance for diverse, diverse society. And I'm not just talking about racially, I'm talking about it across the board here.

John Wilson: 13:31

Yes, yes, and if you were to talk frankly with us, david, I mean, it's only the three of us here, isn't there, for I suppose? But like as as being on the board and then serving as president, like, could you, because I mean, this is a big thing in therapy, isn't it? We need to know ourselves and know the discrepancy. Could you say something about the gap between what is needed and actually how, how you found the profession? Um, yeah, yeah, like if you were to speak honestly with us yeah, yeah.

David Weaver: 14:10

And before I say this, my mother, who passed two years ago, always used to say when you point, you point a finger there, they're three fingers pointing back at yourself. So I think that, being part of it, I had a responsibility as well. So I preface what I'm about to say by saying that the more I engaged with the ACP and the profession was, the more I realized the absolute imperative nature of the profession, especially as I navigated both that profession and politics, especially as I navigated both that profession and politics and just felt that there is a real gap between, when we talk about social change, politics and the profession, and I think the twain isn't meeting. I think that there's a lot of brilliant thinking I mean outstanding thinking that takes place, you know, within the profession. You know I used to turn up, particularly the pandemic, to meetings. If I was having a rough day. I didn't want to have meetings with certain people in the room, mick included, because the thinking and the, the, the, the analysis and so forth is brilliant. I think the unfortunate thing is that I just don't think the profession is realising its profession potential and probably doesn't understand the power that it really does have. I think it's, I feel it's relatively new that this big focus on social justice and social change certainly when I started as a board member, it wasn't, you know when I used to mention it. You know, yeah, people could see with it, but I don't think it was being taken as something that was central to what the profession is all about.

David Weaver: 15:57

I think when we had the pandemic, when we had the murder of George Floyd, then the conversations really started to take place and I remember having conversations with fellow leaders within BACP and stating that you know, if you're going to make this big announcement about social change, you have to really mean it, because I will take it as read that this is what we're going to do and we'll get ourselves into problems because we'll raise expectations and not deliver. And we'll get ourselves into problems because we'll raise expectations and not deliver. So and I felt there was a concern that you know, when you have these seminal moments, like the pandemic, like George Floyd, you know, and other things, a lot is said, you know promises are made, certain themes and issues are prioritized, but the further you move away from those seminal moments, the more likely that the profession, all professions, revert to type, and I feel that there's a level of that that is taking place. We know that when there is recession, the cost of living crisis, where these things happen historically, where those happen, there's an increasing racism, there's increasing oppression, and that's what we're seeing now and that's manifesting itself in terms of people's experiences and psychological experiences and so forth. Is the profession fit for purpose as a system to deal with it? I want to say I don't know.

David Weaver: 17:30

But he asked me. To be frank, I'd say no. Are there some individuals within, are there some clusters within the, the, the uh, within the profession? Are there some good, um, uh, academic writing and the saying the right kind of thing? Yes, but you know, I still have people saying to me well, what's happening with the bursary programme that we said we would set up, which would identify people from disadvantaged backgrounds black people and disabled people and others and target them, because you know there are issues about them joining the profession, be that finances, be that encouragement or whatever, um, but what's happening with that? What's happening with initiatives that are specific around the kind of training that's required so it meets the needs of that diverse, of that diverse society that we're trying to serve? What's happening in terms of that sort of thinking and it's happening, but I don't know Maybe I've been away for the last few months I don't see it happening as cohesively as a system.

David Weaver: 18:43

As I was closer to the seminal moments prior to that. It was Stephen Lawrence, and there'll be other ones the you know the economy, you know um, you know 20, 30 years ago, recession. So, yeah, if I'm being honest, I would say that a lot more needs to be done. Yeah, and I and I on this, I would say that a lot more needs to be done. Yes, and I and I myself as part of that. Um, so it's not pointing the finger, because I was there for a while as well. So I look back and think what could I have done differently? So I think there's a leadership piece here as well.

John Wilson: 19:17

Um, yeah, well, can I resonate with you. Like we saw something that really fascinated and shocked us. At online events, like around the time of George Floyd's martyr, there was loads of people coming to events, online events. We could easily do two hours and maybe three or four hundred colleagues would show up and we were doing that most days of the week, show up, and we were doing that most days of the week and some colleagues said that they would do some training with us um around diversity, around race, and we thought, well, this, this is the moment, you know, where there's so much um interest in coming online and, of course, there was so much need. We ran those workshops and I don't know we were getting maybe like 10 percent of the amount of colleagues coming to those workshops. It really surprised us, like how like there's something in the in the profession where it's hard to engage or we're not engaging um, like even at that time, that kind of we're.

John Wilson: 20:26

We're right next to that seminal moment yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

David Weaver: 20:31

I think um also, people just become despondent. We've been here before, you know, so you know, I remember during the lockdown, um having online meetings. I remember one particular online meeting and having at my father's house and he was in the background. My father was political active in the 70s and 80s and as I was talking, I sort of looked around at him and I thought, why is he putting that face? And, you know, just carried on talking and meeting finished I said, dad, are you okay? And he just sort of said, are we still talking about this? It's, it's like deja vu. We're saying the same things and it's not happening.

David Weaver: 21:11

And I think there are a lot of people that are feeling that they're engaging, but what is it that needs to be done to take these things forward? What is it that that? I think this is something around leadership as a system within the profession, and I think it's important to look in at what it is that therapy does and how it does it, different modalities and so forth. I think that's important. But and how does that link to? If we're speaking about social change and social justice, how is it linked to what's going on out there? Now? You know we're missing the homelessness and people in the street, food banks. It's become a normality gaslighting the way that politicians are behaving, you know, and people's sense of despair, despondency, sense of despair, despondency.

David Weaver: 22:06

You know, I travelled over the last three months to a couple of other countries and so forth and hear what people are saying about what's happening in the world, but also what's happening right here in the UK. What's the psychological impact that that's had, that that's that that is having. And so, yes, I think this. I always talk about seminal moments because I think things happen, people correlate around those. We need to do differently, we need to do better, but it's not really happening in the way that we need it to happen. And that's why I think the piece around speaking about social change has to go hand in hand with speaking about how do we influence, how do relate to what's happening politically, and the converse is true, and a lot of work in that leadership space with, uh, with politicians local level and at national level as well, and they get it. But how do we bring the two together?

John Wilson: 22:59

yes, well, and before we get into that, I I want to maybe see if this is the right place for you, david, but did you then have a sense of the impact on clients, the impact on people who wanted to train as therapists that the profession has really I think, if we're being really polite struggled to engage, maybe even resisted engagement for a long, long time Like the actual impact on people engaging with services?

David Weaver: 23:31

Yeah, yeah, so yes, in a different way. So I think that if we talked about, if you speak about, George Floyd pandemic, there were certainly a lot of people that I spoke to or through organizations I'm involved with, where you're speaking to people about becoming a counselor and it's high interest. I want to do that and in some ways some of them were doing that, unqualified but highly skilled, in their communities, on their estates, um and um, but there were barriers to entry, I think, to the profession, because some of the whatever is said on paper, some of the competencies that institutions are saying that are required to enter the profession in the way that they are articulated, are ruling out certain people who are otherwise doing a grand job actually having therapeutic conversations within communities, within churches, within faith organisations. So during the pandemic I hosted I think it was every two weeks about 120 people from the black churches, ministers and black churches who were talking about the need for those kind of interventions and how could we work with the profession to actually do this? And what about their therapeutic needs?

David Weaver: 24:58

Having to bury people, you know, every single single week and not getting the kind of therapeutic support that they wanted, great conversations, but then it wasn't happening and I think you know I have to hold myself as partly responsible because I was one of those leaders within that system and it didn't happen. And so we acted politically in the sense that we said you know, we wrung our necks. Look, let this not, let this moment not pass us by as it has done previously the recession, stephen Lawrence, et cetera, et cetera and the same thing happened. So it's an abrogation of responsibility on a collective level why this hasn't happened.

John Wilson: 25:36

So then you know, yeah, Could you give an example of one of those kind of the way the criteria is shaped that's excluding, Could you?

David Weaver: 25:45

I think. I think yeah. So, um, I have a very good barber, as you can tell, called patrick, and I refer to him fairly often and I go into barbershop and go into barbershops over the years, that barbershops over the years and I sit there and you know you'll hear people talking. So someone will say you know what, there's this guy and you know he's having this relationship and the woman was unfaithful to him and he's really depressed and I'm thinking and everybody knows you're speaking about yourself there uh, and patrick would be great. So not just that example, other examples where he'd be having therapeutic conversations and really useful and supportive ones. When George Floyd, you know, I spoke to him and said, patrick, you need to do this, and I spoke to a number of organisations about how they could engage in the profession and maybe get supported, funding you know where the fund is and so forth to do it. He was really really, really enthused and he made contact with one of the training institutions and he said, david, you know what you said, it's just bullshit. He said because actually they don't want people like me, because whatever's put on paper, actually what's being described is a white female, white male, able-bodied. That's what's been described. So I think there's something around.

David Weaver: 27:13

I think we've shifted in recognizing. I mean, I started out in social work. I did that as a result of the social work profession, stating that we need to address the disparity in the numbers of black and asian people coming into the profession, not just because it's a benevolent thing to do, but because you know increasing disproportionate number of black children in care. You know issues around mental health and so forth. We need lived experience into it. It's business critical that we do it. I don't think we're as emphatic in describing it as anything much more than benevolent. We need to do this or we we've got the. You know, we've got the parlance around lived experience and so forth. But why is it so important and why, patrick, could you make a really outstanding difference and I think that's really large.

John Wilson: 28:08

Yes, yeah.

David Weaver: 28:11

Like discrimination. So Patrick's not. You know I was very fortunate different reasons, but you know access to good quality education. Back in his time, you know there was O-levels and CSEs and the disproportionate of black people and some girls from working class areas did cses rather than no levels, which were not regarded as anything when you're qualified and we're going to move up. So there's a historical disadvantage in terms of of education. It's historical disadvantage in terms of you know um, where, where they fit in the poverty um stakes and what does that mean in practice.

David Weaver: 28:51

So I suppose I'm giving a lot of my own experiences, some of it much of it based on my ethnicity. But I think, if you're looking at, you know how do we, how do we make the, the profession um more relatable to our diverse society? You're looking at a range of issues there, um, and I just feel that over the years, we speak about it much more coherently. We speak about it um in the manner that it needs to be spoken about because it's so important, but it doesn't manifest in terms of follow-through and what that actually means in terms of training, in terms of practice. Yeah, just my thoughts, right or wrong?

John Wilson: 29:32

I think it's so helpful to hear it, david, and like for you to talk so honestly, and I I kind of wonder, because when you're holding the office of president, there's so many things that you're having to take care of as all the everyone who holds those leadership positions. But if there was, if you weren't restrained in that way, if you could kind of get the profession by the scruff of the neck almost and go right, this is what we're going to do. I mean, there's no one thing is there. But I wonder, like I mean, you're saying something about how we describe the training and then how we do the training. Um, it's not really a question in that, david, but do you get a sense of what I mean?

David Weaver: 30:17

yeah, yeah, I think. So. I think there's still you might have some views on this. I, I think this I think there's still a lot of focus around what happens in the practice room between the counselor and the individual client, which should take place because they're foremost, they're less about the circumstances that lead them into that room and less understanding about why that is important in terms of that interface between the therapist and the client. So I, as president, spoke to a wide range of people because I think, in terms of my presidency, I wanted to be out there.

David Weaver: 31:07

You would recall their experiences, either as practitioners or even as people that have been clients, or clients who just say they just don't get it or, at best, what I'm getting is something really powerful whilst I'm there, but it's not sustaining me. It's not sustainable because there's a lack of an insight in the system and I I think we can't talk about social impact, social change and social justice I think justice is an important part of this without part of training and maybe part of that commitment being around that. And you know, I've spoken to many conferences where people said, well, look, my responsibility is to the client in that room. I think that's important. There'll be different people that will do other things outside of that room to different degrees, but I do feel there's got to be something around that understanding of what some of that backdrop might be, um, and how then that informs the approach of the therapist. I don't think this. I don't think there's enough of that. I think there's going to be more. There's much more of a need for that now.

David Weaver: 32:21

I think you know I've been in this leadership thing for a long time and you know, every year we say we're living on precedent times, everyone just nods because that's the thing that we say. And yeah, we are. But when you say now, these are unprecedented times, unprecedented challenges, politics as we knew it and and criticized it, when you look back at it, there were halcyon days compared to now. And what does that mean for individuals within communities that really, really need counseling? It means a hell of a lot. Are we fit for purpose as a system in terms of dealing with it? No, I don't think so.

John Wilson: 33:06

Yeah well, it feels so important to be having this conversation, david, like because it's so. I think it's so easy and I include myself in this as a therapy field to go oh well, what are we going to contribute to the political system, the social change system, and this conversation is so important. We need to be thinking about ourselves and getting ourselves fit for purpose.

David Weaver: 33:34

And that's where I think collaboration with communities is so important. Being highly qualified and skilled and trained as a counsellor. No one can do that piece better than the counsellor. So I'm not saying that communities and community organizations and so forth take over that role at all, but in the absence of really collaborating and really getting a sense of what is going on out there, I don't think the therapeutic intervention is well informed enough. And maybe there's there's something. I mean, I made a statement a few years ago where I said counselling is too important to be left to counsellors. What I meant by that, what I elaborated, was to say that it is so important, it's so important intervention that you need advocates, you need ambassadors that aren't counsellors. You need politicians that when they're speaking about mental health and so forth, don't just talk about CBT. They're recognising actually what is so important in terms of, you know, creating a better future for society and the role of counsellors and psychotherapists within that and the role of counsellors and psychotherapists within that.

John Wilson: 34:59

And yeah, I think that that's not happened. Yeah, well, and given all the frailties of the therapeutic world counselling and psychotherapy- why do you still think it's so important for societal change?

David Weaver: 35:18

I mean, I'm not saying yeah, well, yeah, because it gives hope, doesn't it? And you know we said a lot. You know I've been sort of victims of your questions. I've spoken about what's not working. Actually, there's a hell of a lot that works and people see it and the stigma you know I think is reduced considerably from the time I started working in this area to where it is now and I have seen firsthand the benefits of it. I felt it. You know, anyone that you know in the BACP world didn't know my mother died two years ago hasn't been listening.

David Weaver: 35:54

I talk about it every time and the therapeutic support I received, just in terms of dealing with that and the family and even members of my family, that you know, just instinctively, I don't do that, that kind of thing. I don't know what they're talking about. It's that that's diminished, it's diminishing, it's decreasing. Um, and in terms of the political space, when you're speaking about mental health, when you're speaking about resilience of communities, uh, community engagement, and how do you work with communities and individuals within communities where, um, you know there's no answer. You know you've just got to sell hope because you know there's no money, um, and what impact is that having on individuals? We've seen how, um, you know, therapy has supported people within that.

David Weaver: 36:45

So it's so important and I think that you, we have an audience now where people don't do what they did maybe 20 years ago to say, well, what's that all about? Then? I think there's the very worst most of the time. You know. Okay, let's hear this because you know, you know, we in communities I do a lot of work with, with young working class people, young black men, that are either involved in or risk of serious youth violence and involved in some you know, really challenging stuff, serious stuff, who, and you get them on their own and you speak to them. They know and they say they want support, but they're not getting it in a way that's culturally appropriate and I use the word culturally appropriate across the board all of the time. Their profession shouldn't depend on the you know the hundreds of brilliant individuals that they are. As a system, it needs to be doing what those individuals are doing shouldn't be the luck of the draw that's so powerful, david, so powerful.

John Wilson: 37:53

Well, and I appreciate you saying about your own experience of counseling around your mother's death as well and like how helpful that's been and how much the profession has to offer. And I'm being in that conversation about how do we, how do we close this gap and I guess, in a way like that, the therapist going, seeing the clients kind of going home, recovering, having a bit of a life, or like something about really being living in the cultures, living in all of our cultures, like absorbing all the cultures around us. Not, I think the more classical life of the therapist has been a kind of isolated life in a way. But are you kind of calling for us to to kind of give up that and be all the way in with our communities and I think, things just becoming more challenging across the board.

David Weaver: 38:49

So we can't, we can't play with this thing. Actually, um, bad interventions impact in the severest way on people's lives. Sometimes it's better to have no intervention at all. I'm just saying that in terms of what I've experienced, particularly as president, where where, um, uh, some cases have brought to my attention, but every time I say that I'd say, conversely, there've been some, you know, the converse has been true as well, which is why we have to keep making the point about why, um, there are few panaceas to the problems of society, but if one was being discussed, I'm seeing a psychotherapy part of that yeah, yeah, well, and that definitely is the hope and aspiration of so many colleagues.

John Wilson: 39:39

I think that's why a lot of us get into the field, because we want to be part of that movement forward in the human evolution.

John Wilson: 39:47

Then, absolutely and and so important, not to lose contact with that very sobering experience of interventions that would have been better not to have been made, to have been so profoundly unhelpful, like a holding on to both ends of that spectrum, just really important, I wonder and this might be too big of a, there might be some bits you want to fill in in between, but like you've been walking the corridors of power, I guess, in terms of the people that you work with, people at the grassroots of the political system all the way through to people who are making decisions at the senior level um, and I mean the question that comes to mind for me I'm sure there are many other things to get into but, like, what have you learned about how power works, how politics work, that we're disconnected from? In the therapy field, that we kind of like, if we knew how it worked better, we could make a bigger contribution, in a way yeah.

David Weaver: 41:00

So, yeah, I'll say this I don't think that I think there are lots of people in the profession that would would know this or that may even disagree with them, but I think that I think something is. There's something about recognizing the power that counseling and psychotherapy has and being able to communicate that better and to use parlance that aligns itself to what will make politicians listen. So I think there's something about I think there's always something about getting a real understanding about what's happening in their world, what makes them tick and what focuses their attention. And how do we communicate, how do we use language and terminology which will resonate that they can relate to? So I think sometimes politicians are speaking to therapists and therapists are speaking to politicians and they may be speaking as well, be speaking do different languages, which are the I really doesn't understand, but they're wanting to say the same thing. So I think there's something about what is making politicians tick. I mean, what I've experienced is, I think, increasing despair because people have lost trust in politicians. People just don't believe politicians. You have really bad examples of politicians that you know will say something and you know they know you know it's not true, but they'll still say it anyway, and you know that happens at, you know President Trump levels. It's right the way through to what happens in local government and so forth. So I think there is that lack of trust. I think there is something about really speaking about the benefits that counselling and psychotherapy can have for their constituents and their residents and where you've seen those counselling communities approach in communities approaches, so within groups as well, within communities, and housing associations have done this as well with tenants politicians begin to see the benefit and become advocates of it. So I think there is something around in the first place and I don't know.

David Weaver: 43:16

You know, do do meetings. You know we did it with bacp at times where meetings would take place, but we're discussing the issues. We're discussing, yeah, the mental health bill. Yeah, we're just, yeah, we're discussing the particular issues and spending less time having conversations to get to know each other's terrain. So we're trying to focus on the deal rather than focus on the relationships. We focus on relationships, you build trust and you begin to establish what's important in each other's terrain, and I think that's a bit missing and where I've been able to bring that together, because I've been a real advocate, you know the work with the, with, with elected councillors in England and Wales, which we're doing, just doing every other month or so, and so leaders and cabinets and so forth, they're speaking about these issues and I've I've been able to have been privileged through the, the relationships I've built, through the work that I do in the profession, to bring those together and it's amazing what takes place when those conversations take place, because you're able to focus in on what really matters for politicians and, more so, what matters for their residents, and it helps them.

David Weaver: 44:25

They're just being completely impersonal. It's helping their popularity and the vote. Then. That's what's happening, if we're frank about it. But they're getting an understanding also of the power of therapy, how it relates to issues around mental health. It's a big, massive deal in the auto communities, particularly post-pandemic, post pandemic. So I think that's I think there's something about how do we, how do we stage more, getting together, um, understanding around each other, and not just having conversations about the deal, mental health bill changes and what kind of stuff, but having conversations about each other's terrain, building the relationships, understanding how politics works, yeah I mean, that should be music to our ears as therapists, building relationships like we go on and on and on about that, don't we?

John Wilson: 45:19

and how easily we could then objectify someone else, maybe a politician, and just go straight to the issue without doing the kind of work we'd be doing with our clients wanting to build, uh, get to know, and so, yeah, yes, yeah and I think critically as well, in between the election periods, because a lot, of, a lot of the interest both ways is election coming up.

David Weaver: 45:41

There's a conversation around this. It's the bit that happens in between. How do you build the relationship? How do you, how do we get a sense of? My mother always used to say, my therapy, my mother, she used to say if you can understand the other perspective and really understand it and be able to understand it even better than that person advocating it and then learn their argument and argue against your perspective with their argument. I mean, I suppose what we're saying is if you can really, in a really deep way, just understand how politics works. And it's not rocket science and it's not exact, you know, but I think there's something about just what is important to really address the issue of social change. You cannot involve, you cannot ignore politics, and that's what we're speaking about.

John Wilson: 46:31

Therapy, social change, best to be that bridge building, has to be that understanding and it's and, it's and, and it can happen, and, and, and you know it, it doesn't take a lot, yeah, for those conversations to take place well and can you, would you have an example that comes to mind about maybe an imaginary politician and therapist having a conversation where really they're talking about the same thing but their language is so different, maybe where a therapist might be able to adjust the vocabulary?

David Weaver: 47:08

Yeah so people talk about knife crime quite a lot carefully. Yeah, so people talk about knife crime quite a lot, um, and there's that debate around knife crime, serious youth, but serious youth violence, um criminal justice issues and trauma. On the other hand, and I've seen countless situations where things have been framed within a criminal justice, uh paradigm where politicians and therapists have got together and actually have recognized actually this is a scared little boy suffering from trauma. Here there's some real challenges um lack of a father, um poverty, mother's not around mental health then. So how do we address this particular issue and and to what extent, and to a great extent, therapy has been part of that solution and politicians begin to understand it and communities begin to engage and say, actually this is really important because we're being framed as criminals here when actually they're underlying things that are going on.

David Weaver: 48:22

And if you're going to provide support, it's not through the prison, it's actually through therapy, culturally appropriate therapy, in a way that people a a lot of those boys we're talking about, white working class boys and black boys just not relating it. They can't relate to us coming in the room and, you know, scare the hell out of us and some of it might be a stereotype, but getting the politics together with the therapeutic world. There's something about how do we frame this? But more fundamentally, how do we address this fundamental social issue, societal issue, and where does therapy fit in within that? So I think that's. I've seen that example and I've heard of that example time and time, time and time again.

John Wilson: 49:05

That's so powerful, so powerful yeah. And is there a language that we might use as therapists around that that just goes over? Well, I don't mean over the head, in terms of it just doesn't land, let's say, in a politician? Because I think we then get into a language. We do the training, we talk to colleagues, we're in service, we start to not notice the water we're swimming in.

David Weaver: 49:32

I think that's true. It's one of those things, isn't it? Because we're talking about therapy. Now, if you go into politics, they've got their language, they've got their language. My son's a lawyer. He's like what the hell are you talking about?

David Weaver: 49:45

When I first started with the ACP, I spent the first three months as a vice president nodding and pretending to understand what the hell is going on, and just confessed and said let's have a real conversation about this, and and so I think we all have to look at the as, um, you know, as my mother used to say when I lived up north, you know, say what you mean, I mean what you say, just you know.

David Weaver: 50:07

So, thinking about how we, how, how, how we, uh, how we communicate and, I think, just having honest conversations, I think a lot of it gets lost in people feeling they need to say the right thing, whatever that is. So I think we need to create safe spaces and that we're having the real conversations, because I think that's where the understanding comes from, and I think, in the academic and conceptual theory space, looking at the importance of that even there, I think that's really important because that's where the learning and the qualifications and the leaders come from, in that particular space as well. So I think that's important in that space as well, not moving away from academic and intellectual rigor. That's important. But how do we bring that thinking into that space?

John Wilson: 51:11

Yeah, thinking into that space. Yeah, like as we're training, uh, colleagues that they can have that experience of tough conversations, real conversations, and yeah, yeah, and as we're coming up to the election, it's's well, as you said, we're in very unprecedented times and it can be easy for well. I think so many people are feeling like we're talking about this before we come on the recording, disillusioned, and like there's not much agency that we can have. We look at these global issues, maybe even issues locally that we can have. We look at these global issues, maybe even issues locally. Like, as you think about your experience in the political circles, do you see that it is possible to actually affect change? You know, as colleagues are maybe listening to this, go right, okay, fine, but life just rolls on. We do the same things over and over. What's your experience there about being able to kind of nudge things forward?

David Weaver: 52:19

I think, ultimately, if people aren't participating in the democratic process, they're not being listened to. So you know whatever you're saying. If I'm a politician and you know it's come up to election time and you're saying something really, really powerful, but you've decided you're not going to register to vote, why would I listen to you? I'm just being really stark. You know it's important, but actually it's about the vote. If I'm one million politicians, about the vote and we've been able to do something, we're lasting power. So I think there is something about about building that hope and people seeing the importance of engaging within the system and registering to vote. And you know, because I think that feeling of powerlessness obviously has a massive impact psychologically, so I registered to vote. Well, what's the point in voting? Who do I vote for? There's been an increase over recent years the number of people that have been despondent with the mainstream party political system, increasing independence, you know independent alliances. So I think there is something around um and I'm just playing this out now and I don't know, but there's something about how do we encourage, through our interventions, people to feel more hopeful, and to feel more hopeful because they can recognise and get involved in democratic engagement and participation. Actually, that's helping me to feel more hope. I can do something, I can take some kind of control of my life. So I think that feeling of hopelessness is something that both the politics and the profession could work on together.

David Weaver: 54:00

So a lot of the work that I do as chair of Operation Black Boat is around how do we encourage the younger generation to get involved, because they're not.

David Weaver: 54:09

They're not getting involved and these are individuals that are know are coming into um, you know the client rooms, um.

David Weaver: 54:18

So I I think that is really, really important and I think that social change I must speak about social change unless we're speaking about hope and how do people um find themselves represented, how they engage, how they're and what systems can be used to do so. Councils often talk about citizens' juries. I think it's happening actually doing some work around citizens' juries and I did that as a start-up as president, doing some work where the council actually hosted a conference around counselling and the importance of that and citizens jurors. They've actually followed it on, where there have been individuals who are clients, who got involved in that and have felt much more powerful and empowered as a result of feeling that they can make a difference in their local place, without around potholes, without big collection, without around, you know, maybe policing or whatever. Um, I think the more we sort of think about these issues, think about these examples, with, the more we can see actually that there is some correlation yeah, and that's something we could be actively talking about in our communities, maybe even with our clients.

John Wilson: 55:41

Are we? Are we participating? Are we engaged, encouraging each other to be engaged? Yeah, yeah, and you were saying earlier and in terms of that work, the levels of voter registration are incredibly low in racialised and minoritised communities, more than four of black eligible voters are registered to vote.

David Weaver: 56:17

That's 25%. 24% of Asian eligible voters are not registered to vote. In terms of those of mixed heritage, 31%. If you look at white working class areas, there's a lot of figures coming out. You know the showing is not as not as low, but really alarming and uh um concerning uh figures. So you have got that sense of powerlessness and you know what's the point and how does that then manifest in other areas of your life and how does that inform then what happens or what should be?

John Wilson: 56:52

think we should be thinking, yeah, well, that increase in participation would have a massive impact on the politicians, I guess, and because, as you say, it's the vote that makes the difference, and yeah, well, I was a political advisor, you know I'd speak about these particular issues and loss of empathy and so forth.

David Weaver: 57:15

But if they're going into particular areas, they're going to focus on those people that are registered to vote and actually can make a difference. But what we found is is that that sense of hope really increases when people feel that they're able just to speak about how they're feeling but, more importantly, getting involved in some way. There'll be different levels of involvement, different levels of participation, um, different levels of understanding, but it's building that sort of psychological state and then there's a kind of there's a real positive cycle in that that talking in therapy can create hope.

John Wilson: 57:59

Maybe creates agency outside in the community. Being able to contribute creates more hope. Come back into the therapy world, build that up some more like there could be a really positive circle in that.

David Weaver: 58:11

Yeah, and we felt that those are happening in communities anyway, where it's been more difficult now because of the cuts, so there aren't as many community centers or youth centers, but where they are. I mean, these are the conversations they're having, um, their therapeutic conversations taking place in churches, the jars and mosques. Um, they're speaking about these, but often they're people involved in it that aren't qualified, still doing a good job of not being qualified. If we're talking about an approach which is around a society and as a profession, really being the best that we can be, to not be engaging there or learning from there is a real big mistake, big opportunity lost.

John Wilson: 58:58

Yeah, well, and here we are approaching a general election in the UK. Well, lots of countries are approaching elections around the world. Yeah, I mean, maybe do you have a sense of whether there's any particular political persuasions that might be more open to change, or I mean, that's a tricky question to think about or do you? See, or do you see across the political like there are people in all the parties that are kind of willing to engage in these conversations.

David Weaver: 59:40

Yeah, I do. I think it's easy to say that all politicians are bad. They're not. There's some good people across the main political parties and I came from one particular in terms of a particular party, but found that actually you know our main one person, who's Kenneth Clark. You know considerably partly.

David Weaver: 1:00:04

You know he was my local MP for a while and we'd catch trains and I'd be sitting on the opposite side and what kind of silly idea are you coming up with then? And you know we'd have conversations, good man, good social justice conscience in all of the parties. So I think you know we've got to have hope. But if and I keep coming back to this if we're talking about social change and the challenges, how do we engage those individuals? You know how do we work with people that are potential allies, honest opponents? How do you work with a fair-weather friend Because there are many of those in politics how do you work with adversaries? I think it's just that political consciousness and awareness is part of our thinking in engaging issues around social change and encouraging it the other way around as well.

John Wilson: 1:01:00

Yeah Well, and I'm really still thinking about what you said a little while ago about. There is, of course, everybody's in the frenzy as we come up to the election, but it's about building those relationships over the years, like long-term relationships, really makes a difference.

David Weaver: 1:01:22

And focusing on, I call it the noble cause. What is it? Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? Why is this so important? What are the issues that we're trying to address? And I think that focus around the cause is so important because people can coalesce around that. They may have different approaches, different views, different standpoints, but if you know a value, a principle or purpose around the profession is going to be around social change and social justice, which I think it should be somehow, then I think that's a great I wouldn't say starting point, because it's a starting, but continuing point. People can coalesce around that. If anything goes, people aren't capturing. Why is this so important? And why is this so important now? Then I think we'll be having these debates we've added tonight.

John Wilson: 1:02:18

Yeah, yes, oh, we've covered so many and visited so many places, david, but I want to make, I want to just check in with you if there's anything that you've been thinking about before the conversation that we haven't touched on, or there might be something very deliberate you would want to say to colleagues who tune into the podcast that we haven't and there might not be, but I just want to make sure there's some space for that, david, and yeah, no, I mean, I think I think we've covered most of what I thought we would cover and wanted to cover.

David Weaver: 1:02:56

I think it's my last point. Really, just we speak about social change, social justice, just really thinking about what's happening now in society in the UK, what's happening internationally, what that means for the people, our clients internationally, what that means for the people our clients, um, and why our understanding of that is so important in terms of shaping the kind of intervention that we have to know, at best. I think that's really, really important and creating a sense of urgency around it, because we've spoken about this for many, many years, but I do believe there's a there's a sense of urgency that's required now, um in um really harnessing a leadership event endeavor, a collective leadership endeavor, to address these issues around social change and what it means for for the profession. I think, from my point of view and um, some may say you might say this, I remember I been asked are you a black president or president that happens to be black? I'd say both, actually, but my identity and my lived experience means that I give attention to those issues that impact on me and people like me and it's impacted on society generally, which is around the issue of race equality and I think where there was a time a few years ago where we were all talking about we must do better now in terms of race equality and we're using parlance like anti-racism and what that means for the profession, we, just like many other professions, are speaking less about that now and there's a level of reverting to type that we must challenge, especially now where racism is on the increase and where discrimination is on the increase, which always takes place at times of recession, massive cost of living and diminishing hope in politicians.

David Weaver: 1:04:49

So I think our role is about social change and social justice. So I think our role is about social change and social justice and that should inform what we do and how we do it and further conversations around that. But whilst this is just an academic conversation without any kind of outcome, I think having these academic conversations, as long as they're out of focus or informed outcomes, I think they're great. If they're not, more outcomes, I think they're great. If they're not, then it's just traumatic. So I will feel and I often did as President and in other settings, as we know, this is almost abusive now because we're just talking about this stuff and we have the ability to actually do something, and we're not, and we're all responsible for that, but we have more of a sort of um moving away from I as a leader to we as leaders, that collaborative leadership piece within the sector and across sectors. I think we could make a difference. Yeah, so that's what I'd have to say to thank you very much appreciate it thank you, david, thank you so much.

John Wilson: 1:05:58

I think you've given us a lot to take away and think about and that just that continuing to talk with that action action is is we're just re-traumatizing like we need to be on the move, making a difference in that we position as leaders so important. David, I want to particularly say thank you for how frankly you have talked with us. I think that's just so important as a profession to really see ourselves as we are and the distance that we need to cover. That's the only way we're going to be able to make that progress and thinking about how we get into dialogue with our colleagues and other professions, particularly the political profession. So thank you, david, that's fine.

David Weaver: 1:06:52

Thank you very much, john, and I see myself as part of that. So it's not, it's us, we, yes, what things could I do differently and better? And who else am I going to work with? What could I've done differently? Um, because our role really is to bequeath to the next generation society better than we found it. That's what my father's generation did actually I want to say this, the Whinlush generation and we've been let down by successive governments in plain view, and people in my community take that seriously and it's having a traumatic impact on many members of our communities who are experiencing their parents, who've experienced their parents being, you know, victimized and discriminated against in plain view.

David Weaver: 1:07:44

You know, have been sent back to the Caribbean by the parts of the world unlawfully, papers being lost and then told that they'll be compensated, but not being compensated on the back of what may argue is a political business plan that says they're going to die out anyway. So you know, I say all of that not to sort of say it's all human disaster, because we have to have hope and there's some good things happening, but it just shows you, doesn't it, that, you know, in a few years' time you're going to have people from my communities and you're going to have people from other communities that are suffering significantly and really need the kind of interventions that only this profession can do. But we've got to really be clear about why we're doing this. What is it we need to do in the correct sense of urgency to live with this? So I want to say thank you very much for inviting me.

John Wilson: 1:08:40

I hope there's been some food for thought and, uh, keep up the good work, it's great so much food for thought, so much, and we need to hold all this together as, yeah, as a whole community, don't we? And also being in receipt of the wisdom from your parents too really appreciated that, um, yeah, and thinking about our community responsibility and how much needs to change, we're really at that inflection point where we can make a difference. Yeah, david, thank you so much. It feels like that's the moment for us to finish, so really appreciate, um, this more than an hour together and thank you for everything that you brought to the conversation. All that, so much food for thought, david, thank you.